Priority Signals

When users ask about urgent or priority items, use Glean to identify what needs immediate attention based on activity signals.

Tool Naming

See the glean-tools-guide skill for Glean MCP tool naming conventions.

When This Applies

Use this approach when users ask:

• "What's urgent?"

• "What needs my attention?"

• "What should I focus on first?"

• "Are there any blockers waiting on me?"

• "What's critical right now?"

• "Help me prioritize"

BE SKEPTICAL

Not every item found is truly urgent. Before including results, evaluate:

Urgency Validity Test

• Is this genuinely urgent, or just recent/noisy?

• ✅ URGENT: Explicit deadline, blocking others, explicitly marked urgent

• ⚠️ IMPORTANT: Should address but not time-critical

• ❌ NOISE: Just new, not actually urgent

Relevance Test

• Is this the user's responsibility?

• ✅ INCLUDE: Directly assigned, explicitly mentioned

• ❌ EXCLUDE: Just CC'd, tangentially related

Filter Out:

• Mass announcements

• CC'd threads where they're not primary audience

• "Urgent" labels on non-urgent items (urgency inflation)

• Old items that were urgent but are now resolved

Quality over noise: Better to report "nothing urgent" than overwhelm with false positives.

Priority Signal Sources

Signal Type Glean Tool What to Look For

Direct mentions search

People tagging/mentioning the user

Action items meeting_lookup

Items assigned in meetings

Waiting on you search

Questions awaiting response

Urgent keywords search

"urgent", "ASAP", "blocking"

Recent activity user_activity

Items you've engaged with

Query Patterns

Find Urgent Mentions

search query="urgent OR ASAP OR blocking [user name]" updated="past_week" sort_by_recency=true

Find Assignments from Meetings

chat "What action items were assigned to [user] in meetings over the past week?"

Find Waiting Questions

search query="[user name] question OR asking" updated="past_week"

Priority Tiers

When presenting results, categorize by urgency (ONLY after vetting):

Tier 1: Immediate (Today)

• Explicit deadlines today

• Items marked urgent/ASAP with evidence it's genuine

• Blockers on others

Tier 2: Soon (This Week)

• Action items from recent meetings

• Questions awaiting response

• Review requests

Tier 3: Awareness

• Decisions affecting your area

• Updates to watch

• FYI items

Output Format

Priority Triage

Vetting Summary

Immediate Attention

This Week

Filtered (Not Actually Urgent)

• [Item] - [Why filtered: CC'd only / already resolved / etc.]

If Nothing Is Urgent

This is a valid and valuable answer:

Priority Triage

No Urgent Items Found

Searched [X] sources and found no items requiring immediate attention.

What was checked:

• Direct mentions: None requiring action
• Meeting action items: All current
• Blocking requests: None found

Suggestion: This might be a good time for [deep work / planning / etc.]

Relationship to Commands

For comprehensive briefings, suggest:

• /glean-productivity:daily-briefing

• Full morning briefing with prioritized items

• /glean-meetings:catch-up

• Catch up after time away